How do I tell Octave where to find functions without picking up other files? - scripting

I've written an octave script, hello.m, which calls subfunc.m, and which takes a single input file, a command line argument, data.txt, which it loads with load(argv(){1}).
If I put all three files in the same directory, and call it like
./hello.m data.txt
then all is well.
But if I've got another data.txt in another directory, and I want to run my script on it, and I call
../helloscript/hello.m data.txt
this fails because hello.m can't find subfunc.m.
If I call
octave --path "../helloscript" ../helloscript/hello.m data.txt
then that seems to work fine.
The problem is that if I don't have a data.txt in the directory, then the script will pick up any data.txt that is lying around in ../helloscript.
This seems a bit fragile. Is there any way to tell octave, preferably in the script itself, to get subfunctions from the same directory as the script, but to get everything else relative to the current directory.
The best robust solution I can think of at the moment is to inline the subfunction in the script, which is a bit nasty.
Is there a good way to do this, or is it just a thorny problem that will cause occasional hard to find problems and can't be avoided?
Is this in fact just a general problem with scripting languages that I've just never noticed before? How does e.g. python deal with it?
It seems like there should be some sort of library-load-path that can be set without altering the data-load-path.

Adding all your subfunctions to your program file is not nasty at all. Why would you think so? It is perfectly normal to have function definitions in your script. The only language I know that does not do this is Matlab but that's just braindead.
The other alternative you have is to check that the input file argument, data.txt exists. Like so:
fpath = argv (){1};
[info, err, msg] = stat (fpath);
if (err)
error ("could not stat `%s' : %s", fpath, msg);
endif
## continue your script knowing the file exists
But really, I would recommend you to use both. Add your subfunctions in your main program, the only reason to have it on separate file is if you plan on sharing with other programs, and always check input arguments.

Related

Executing additional command in Backend that takes the to be generated file

I'm currently looking for a way to execute iverilog in in Yosys, to be more exact at the write_verilog step.
I need to feed iverilog the file, which will be generated by write_verilog (reason is, I need to uphold the variable source information, which are kept in the yosys attributes).
However the execute() function only writes into the file upon function end.
If I were to call iverlog testbench.v design.v with design.v being the file which is generated through write_verilog, I get an error, telling me it's missing modules.
Is it possible to carry out commands, that depend on the file which is generated after execute() has run through, while still being in the verilog backend?
You could use a script instead, to run iverilog after write_verilog, inside a Yosys script a line beginning ! is passed to the shell:
write_verilog design.v
!iverilog testbench.v design.v

Output to stderr in REBOL2?

I am trying to get my CGI scripts running on my web host (which runs on FreeBSD). To debug why I keep getting the dreaded "premature end of script headers" error, their support recommended that I redirect all my output to stderr, rather than printing it. Looking up how to do this, I came across a very old RAMBO ticket about it, but it looks like it was never implemented.
Per some of the answers to this question, it seems like I should be able to do a call {echo Hello, world >&2} to achieve this, but it doesn't work.
How can I write to stderr in REBOL2?
For my CGI-specific scenario, I have a truly awful workaround. Since writing to stderr in Perl (with which I am entirely unfamiliar) is a one-liner, I'm currently calling the REBOL script from Perl and printing its output to stderr from there:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use CGI;
# Note the backticks
my $the_string = `/home/public/rebol -csw test-reb.cgi`;
print STDERR $the_string;
This webpage has some suggestions http://www.liquidweb.com/kb/apache-error-premature-end-of-script-headers/
to solve your real problem. Perhaps you did not have the headers printed as first thing in your script, this must be the first thing to do. Maybe the rights are not sufficient, or the .r file type was not properly added in your .htaccess as cgi able file. Your (correct!) rebol core exe has not the correct rights. Or your script ends up in an endless loop?
Some hints to redirect errors for Rebol cgi script:
http://www.rebol.com/docs/core23/rebolcore-2.html#section-6.2
Better late than never... I've just implemented it for Rebol3 in my Rebol fork.
https://github.com/Oldes/Rebol-issues/issues/2468
The syntax will be probably changed a little bit, because I don't like that the system console port is named input, although it is not just for the input.
So far it is:
print 1 ;<- std_out
modify system/ports/input 'error on
print 2 ;<- std_err
modify system/ports/input 'error off
print 3 ;<- std_out

SCIP write best feasible solution in automated test

Based on steps in http://scip.zib.de/doc/html/TEST.php, I have managed to set up an automated test using SCIP. However, I'd like to write the solution (best feasible solution) to a file, instead of just getting the objective value. Is there anyway to do it in the automated test?
I did a hack in check.sh by replacing
OPTCOMMAND=optimize; write solution myfilename.sol;
But too bad, it doesn't seem to work, when I tried to make TEST=mytest test, this line is observed from the output
bash ./check.sh mytest bin/scip-3.1.0.linux.x86_64.gnu.opt.spx default scip-3.1.0.linux.x86_64.gnu.opt.spx 3600 2100000000 6144 1 default 10000 false false 3.1.0 spx false /tmp optimize;
write: solution is not logged in on myfilename.sol
I know it is possible to write the solution via interactive shell, but I am trying to automate the test in order to retrieve both solution and obj value. Any help or clarification will be much appreciated!
You are getting an error because with the syntax you are using, you try to invoke a bash command called "write" because of the semicolon:
The write utility allows you to communicate with other users, by
copying lines from your terminal to theirs.
Just try without semicolon ;)
The cleaner solution would be to modify the file "check/configuration_tmpfile_setup_scip.sh"
and add the line
echo write solution /absolute/path/to/solutions/${INSTANCE}.sol >> $TMPFILE
before the quit command. This configuration file sets up a batch file to feed SCIP with all commands that the interactive shell should execute, and you can model arbitrary user behavior.

Inconsistent Behavior In A Batch File's For Statement

I've done very little with batch files but I'm trying to track down a strange bug I've been encountering on a legacy system.
I have a number of .exe files in particular folder. This script is supposed to duplicate them with a different file name.
Code From Batch File
for %%i in (*.exe) do copy \\networkpath\folder\%%i \\networkpath\folder\%%i.backup.exe
(Note: The source and destination folders are THE SAME)
Example Of Desired Behavior:
File1.exe --> Becomes --> File1.exe.backup.exe
File2.exe --> Becomes --> File2.exe.backup.exe
Now first, let me say that this is not the approach I would take. I know there are other (potentially more straight forward) ways to do this. I also know that you might wonder WHY on earth we care about creating a FileX.exe.backup.exe. But this script has been running for years and I'm told the problem only started recently. I'm trying to pinpoint the problem, not rewrite the code (even if it would be trivial).
Example Buggy Output:
File1.exe.backup.exe
File1.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File1.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File1.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File1.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File1.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
etc...
File2.exe.backup.exe
File2.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File2.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File2.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File2.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
File2.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe
Not knowing anything about batch files, I looked at this and figured that the condition of the for statement was being re-evaluated after each iteration - creating a (near) infinite loop of copying (I can see that, eventually, the copy will fail when the names get too long).
This would explain the behaviour I'm seeing. And when cleaned the directory in question so that it had only the original File1.exe file and ran the script it produced the bug code. The problem is that I CANNOT replicate the behaviour anywhere else!?!
When I create a folder locally with a few .exe files and run the script - I get the expected output. And yes, if I run it again, I get one instance of 'File1.exe.backup.exe.backup.exe' (and each time I run it again, it increases in length by one). But I cannot get it to enter the near-infinite loop case.
It's been driving me crazy.
The bug is occurring on a networked location - so I've tried to recreate it on one - but again, no success. Because it's a shared network location, I wondered if it could have something to do with other people accessing or modifying files in the folder and even introduced delays and wrote a tiny program to perform actions in the same folder - but without any success.
The documentation I can find on the 'for' statement doesn't really help, but all of the tests I've run seem to suggest that the in (*.exe) section is only evaluated once at the beginning of execution.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what might be going on here?
I agree with Andriy M's comment - it looks to be related to Windows 7 Batch Script 'For' Command Error/Bug
The following change should fix the problem:
for /f "eol=: delims=" %%i in ('dir /b *.exe') do copy \\networkpath\folder\%%i \\networkpath\folder\%%i.backup.exe
Any file that starts with a semicolon (highly unlikely, but it can happen) would be skipped with the default EOL of semicolon. To be safe you should set EOL to some character that could never start a file name (or any path). That is why I chose the colon - it cannot appear in a folder or file name, and can only appear after a drive letter. So it should always be safe.
Copy supports wildcard characters also in target path. You can use
copy \\networkpath\folder\*.exe \\networkpath\folder\*.backup.exe

Script for Testing with Input files and Output Solutions

I have a set of *.in files and a set of *.soln files with matching files names. I would like to run my program with the *.in file as input and compare the output to the ones found in the *.soln files. What would be the best way to go about this? I can think of 3 options.
Write some driver in Java to list files in the folder, run the program, and compare. This would be hard and difficult.
Write a bash script to do this. How?
Write a python script to do this?
I would go for a the bash solution. Also given that what you are doing is a test, I would always save the output of the myprogram so that if there are failures, that you always have the output to compare it to.
#!/bin/bash
for infile in *.in; do
basename=${infile%.*}
myprogram $infile > $basename.output
diff $basename.output $basename.soln
done
Adding the checking or exit statuses etc. as required by your report.
If the program exists, I suspect the bash script is the best bet.
If your soln files are named right, some kind of loop like
for file in base*.soln
do
myprogram > new_$file
diff $file new_$file
done
Of course, you can check the exit code of diff and
do various other things to create a test report . . .
That looks simplest to me . . .
Karl
This is primarily a problem that requires the use of the file-system with minimal logic. Bash isn't a bad choice for such problems. If it turns out you want to do something more complicated than just comparing for equality Python becomes a more attractive choice. Java doesn't seem like a good choice for a throwaway script such as this.
Basic bash implementation might look something like this:
cd dir_with_files
program=your_program
input_ext=".in"
compare_to_ext=".soIn"
for file in *$from_extension; do
diff <("$program" "$i") "${file:0:$((${#file}-3))}$compare_to_ext"
done
Untested.